Santa's Sleigh

We're now down to the wire in preparation for Christmas so I'll keep this short.  Just wanted to get in one more ornament before the big day to share.   There isn't much to tell when it comes to the initial concept.  

The idea came to me when sketching out our Christmas images and thought it would be kind of nice to do a Japanese version of Santa's sleigh.   Kind of fought with the problem of the size of the crane compared to the sleigh since that makes the stamp kind of ...BIG.  Anyway, it all worked out and turned out fun in the end!

When revisiting the image this year, I suddenly wanted to do this as an ornament.  Quite a challenge to make it 3D, but I enjoyed myself just trying to make it work.  I had decided to have the crane hang on his own hook, separate from the sleigh.  That way, he could be higher and on a different branch altogether.  This makes it hard to find a place to hang on the tree though.  I think my friend, June's idea was better to attach both threads (one from crane and one from sleigh) to a customized wire hanger, like a mobile so at least they would always hang the right way.  Maybe for next time.

Thanks for stopping by again, and here's wishing a wonderful holiday to everyone!

 

Building Shimo-san

Well, it looks like we are deep into the Christmas season now so I thought I would share an ornament that I made.  I love making tree ornaments most, even though they don't serve much purpose but to help decorate an already over decorated tree.  

This one is made from the Sister Stamp image of the snowman (Shimo-san).  I had these plastic ornaments lying around from last year and finally had use for one of them.  I just reduced the image I had already colored and fit it into the globe, but since I wanted to have the characters seen from both sides,  before gluing in place, I had to fix the kimono of the boy to be correct for the reverse (it must be tied the correct way, following the Japanese tradition).  Then I created the "snow" from a cotton pad turned inside out, placed at the bottom of the ball – didn't have a regular cotton ball handy – and added glitter for "bling".  Also put at the top – next to the bow – some flowers that my sister gave me in summer, for the finishing touch.  A simple but fun project! 

Also thought I would share the evolution of the image with you.  The idea came from my sister as we brainstormed Christmas-themed stamps.  I must admit I wasn't too keen on the idea initially and kind of reluctantly worked on the sketch.   I thought it was a little "modern" for what I liked.   But as I continued, I started really enjoying the idea and the challenge of telling the story and keeping a somewhat traditional feel of the scene.  In the end, I sent the image to my sister and told her that it came out just so darn cute!  Good idea!  Well, that showed me!  Now it's one of my favorites.

Here's some of the other opriginal sketches I had done for the other holiday Sister Stamps images of the past.  I kind of like the image of the little girl with the stocking (Yuki) as well.  I thought of when I was young and how Christmas was my very favorite time of the year, and still is.  I believed in everything and the magic was so very real to me.  To wake up in the morning and see my stocking full was the greatest feeling. So that image was to express my sheer joy of Santa's visit.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season.  Take care and thanks for visiting!

Oops, I forgot another ornament I made using the Shimo-san image. This one is a simple decoupage project on a paper-mache' ornament sold at Michael's. Enjoy!